BEAUTIFUL PROMENADE.

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which does great honour to the architect. The rest of the principal streets run parallel with each other, nearly a mile in length, intersected at right angles, and at pretty nearly equal distances, by cross streets, about a quarter of a mile in length.

The situation of Queen-street, which opens to the north, (the fashionable evening promenade,) is grand and beautiful beyond description. The eye, enchanted, wanders over parks, plantations, and villages, adorning a gradual slope of about two miles to the Frith of Forth, which exhibits a noble exof water; its shores decorated with every variety panse of rural beauty, and its bosom embellished with gliding vessels and rocky islets; whilst the elevated hills of Fifeshire, and the mountains of Perthshire, form a beautiful back-ground to this magnificent scene. In my opinion, it greatly surpasses the view from Richmond-hill. It is truly delightful to join an evening promenade in this street when the sun is shedding his last light upon this exquisite prospect, and also shining upon a number of well-dressed and beautiful females, who add not a little to the witchery of the whole. This fine prospect is beginning to be interrupted by the recent elevation of new streets, and particularly by the houses on a piece of ground, called Heriot's-row. The view from Prince's-street, which opens to the south, is of a totally different nature; it commands the vast depth:

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EARTHEN MOUND.

between the two towns, called the North Loch, the Castle, the North Bridge, and one side of the Old Town, rising in an august and solemn manner. In a dark night nothing can be more extraordinary and original in effect than the lights from the windows in this part of the Old Town, as seen from Prince's-street. This street was till lately the resi dence of fashion; but such is the increasing opulence of the city, that most of the houses are either occupied or taken by shopkeepers of respectability.

An easy communication is preserved between the two towns by the North Bridge before mentioned, which is 1,125 feet long, from Prince's-street to the High-street; the height of its great arches, from the top of the parapet to the base, being 68 feet; and also by the Earthen Mound, which is about 800 feet long, 92 feet high at the south end, and 58 at the north. This mound was commenced in 1783, owing to a petty tradesman, named George Boyd, who lived in the Old Town, having prevailed upon some of his neighbours to join him in the expense of constructing a little causeway, for their convenience in visiting the New Town, instead of going round by the North Bridge. This simple and rude communication induced the magistrates to grant permission to the builders of the New Town to deposit their earth and rubbish in this spot, by which this stupendous undertaking has been effected.

It is calculated, that, at an average,

HOTELS AND WAITERS.

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eighteen hundred cart-loads of earth were deposited there every day, for a period which brings the total amount of earth to one million three hundred and fifty thousand cartloads. Thus was this immense mound produced without any other expense to the magistrates than that of spreading the earth. A stone wall, with openings at intervals, has been lately raised upon it, to protect the passengers from the furious gusts of wind so frequently prevalent here.

The number of handsome hotels were amongst the early objects of my admiration. Some of them are as splendid as any in London, and prove the rapid advance which Edinburgh has made in refinement. The rooms are elegantly furnished, and the servants tolerably clean and very attentive. Not many years since, the inns afforded the most wretched accommodations, and the waiters were so filthy that it was whimsically said of them, that if you were to throw one of them against the wall he would stick there. Indeed, so late as the year 1768, a stranger coming to Edinburgh was obliged to put up at a filthy execrable inn, or bad private lodging. The word hotel was then only known to those who understood French or old English: but the Caledonian, like the English capital, has experienced great changes for the better.

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SCOTTISH NAMES.

The house which the Duke of Douglas inhabited at the Union in the year 1792, was occupied by a wheelwright; the house of the great Marquis of Argyle, on the Castle-hill, was possessed by a hosier; Lord Dunmore's house was left by a chairman, for want of accommodation; and, amongst other vicissitudes to which the great and the little are subject, I was struck with the palace of the present Duke of Queensbury having been converted into, and now used as, a venereal hospital, In 1786, the areas for building shops and houses on the east and west side of the bridge, to the south over the Cowgate-street, sold higher, it is conjectured, than ground ever sold in any city.

Many of the best houses have a common door and staircase leading to the different stories above, as well as an ordinary street-door; and bells are almost universally and most judiciously substituted for knockers. Upon many of the doors, not only the names, but the places of abode of the occupiers, are affixed, to prevent the confusion which would arise from there being so many of the same name. I was informed that there are in one quarter of the city two brothers, living near each other, who are twins; and as they have two other brothers, they are designated on their doors as tertius and quartus; but, notwithstanding this precaution, they are so amazingly like each other, that even their own tenants frequently mistake them.

EDINBURGH IMPRoved.

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Upon his arrival in the Caledonian capital, an English stranger is at first surprised at the following definitions. A square is called scale-stair-a round stair, a turnpike-a court is often called a square. The Parliament-house is an exception--its site is sometimes called a close--sometimes a square. Now, properly, a close is a narrow lane; and a wynd, one of broader dimensions, which might allow a cart to pass. The same stranger might be disposed to think the lower Scotch never moved but by the compass.. If he were in South Bridge-street, and to ask a Scotchman of the humbler sort his way to St.-Andrew's-square, it is ten to one but the answer would be, "Why you must keep straight northward, till you reach the Register-office, then turn to the westward, and the second turning to the northward again will tak' e to it." The streets are well paved, and kept tolerably clean.

Report has long been unfavourable to the cleanliness of the ancient part of the Caledonian capital, and I believe most justly so. Many travellers have mentioned with lively disgust the evening hour, when omnium versatur urná. It must have impressed the mind of a stranger with astonishment that a people so eminently enlightened should have been so long ignorant of habits, which, it might be fairly expected, would have been adopted by a country in the first stage of its refinement. It is therefore with great plea